The Confidential Agent by Graham Greene Read Free Book Online Page A

clock struck six.
    A peaky haggard face looked at him: a child, about fourteen. He said, ‘I think there is a room waiting for me. The name is D.’
    â€˜Oh,’ the child said, ‘we were expecting you last night.’ She was struggling with the bow of an apron; sleep was still white at the corners of her eyes; he could imagine the cruel alarm clock dinning in her ears. He said gently, ‘Just give me the key and I’ll go up.’ She was looking at his face with consternation. He said, ‘I had a little accident – with a car.’
    She said, ‘It’s number twenty-seven. Right at the top. I’ll show you.’
    â€˜Don’t bother,’ he said.
    â€˜Oh, it’s no bother. It’s the “short times” that are the bother. In and out three times in a night.’ She had all the innocence of a life passed since birth with the guilty. For the first two flights there was a carpet: afterwards just wooden stairs. A door opened and an Indian in a gaudy dressing-gown gazed out with heavy and nostalgic eyes. His guide plodded up ahead; she had a hole in one heel which slipped out of the trodden shoe. If she had been older she would have been a slattern, but at her age she was only sad.
    He asked, ‘Have there been any messages left for me?’
    She said, ‘A man called last night. He left a note.’ She unlocked a door. ‘You’ll find it on the washstand.’
    The room was small: an iron bedstead, a table covered with a fringed cloth, a basket chair, a blue-patterned cotton bedspread, clean and faded and spider-thin. ‘Do you want some hot water?’ the child asked gloomily.
    â€˜No, no, don’t bother.’
    â€˜And what will you be wanting for breakfast? – most lodgers take kippers or boiled eggs.’
    â€˜I won’t want any this morning. I will sleep a little.’
    â€˜Would you like me to call you later?’
    â€˜Oh no,’ he said. ‘These are such long stairs. I am quite used to waking myself. You needn’t bother.’
    She said passionately, ‘It’s good working for a gentleman. Here they are all “short time” – you know what I mean – or else they’re Indians.’ She watched him with the beginning of devotion; she was of an age when she could be won by a single word for ever. ‘Haven’t you any bags?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜It’s lucky as how you were introduced. We don’t let rooms to people without luggage – not if they’re by themselves.’
    There were two letters waiting for him, propped against the tooth-glass on the washstand. The first he opened contained letter-paper headed The Entrenationo Language Centre: a typed message – ‘Our charge for a course of thirty lessons in Entrenationo is six guineas. A specimen lesson has been arranged for you at 8.45 o’clock to-morrow (the 16th inst.), and we very much hope that you will be encouraged to take a full course. If the time arranged is for any reason inconvenient, will you please give us a ring and have it altered to suit your requirements?’ The other was from Lord Benditch’s secretary confirming the appointment.
    He said, ‘I’ve got to be going out again very soon. I shall just take a nap.’
    â€˜Would you like a hot bottle?’
    â€˜Oh no, I shall do very well.’
    She hovered anxiously at the door. ‘There’s a gas meter for pennies. Do you know how they work?’ How little London altered. He remembered the ticking meter with its avidity for coins and its incomprehensible dial: on a long evening together they had emptied his pocket and her purse of coppers, until they had none left and the night got cold and she left him till morning. He was suddenly aware that, outside, two years of painful memories still waited to pounce. ‘Oh yes,’ he said quickly, ‘I know. Thank you.’ She absorbed his thanks